Los Angeles Lakers: How Frank Vogel should divvy up the bench minutes
By Jason Reed
8. Avery Bradley: 20 minutes
People who do not follow the Los Angeles Lakers probably do not realize how big of an impact Avery Bradley is set to have on this team. The most recent memory of Bradley is his terrible time with the Clippers before he was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies, where he started to look like himself again.
Since then, Bradley has gotten into phenomenal shape and at 28 years old, he is right at the sweet spot to enter his prime. There is a very good chance that we see the Boston Celtics version of Avery Bradley this year for the Lakers, which is going to get him many more minutes and could even force his way into the starting lineup.
You could absolutely make the case for Bradley as the starting point guard because of his defense and the fact that he does not need the ball, which is helpful alongside LeBron James. Bradley can be a defender and off-ball scoring threat.
To start the year, though, we have Bradley on the bench as he still has to prove it in the regular season. We only gave Danny Green 25 minutes per game because of the Lakers’ depth in the backcourt, making way for Bradley to get 20.
That gets us up to 45 for the shooting guard position, assuming Bradley only plays there, with three minutes of wiggle room if Vogel runs a different rotation with someone else at the two for a limited time (which we will get to).